Archaeology of a Border Community

Tradition and Innovation in Aegean Iron Technologies: A View From Early Iron Age Ionia

“…Essentially, models that emphasise bronze shortage implicitly draw on the so-called ‘push’ factors, while models that stress the incentives provided by iron rely on the ‘pull’ factors (cf. Bunimovitz and Lederman 2012, 104; Erb-Satullo 2019, 582).…”

“…This trend has propelled a reassessment of previous models explaining the iron innovation at the turn of the first millennium bc . The re-evaluation has also led to a crucial conceptual shift of emphasis from investigating the impact of the spread of iron on Mediterranean societies to trying to understand how this spread was affected by the differing social, cultural and economic conditions of the various societies (Veldhuijzen 2012; Bunimovitz and Lederman 2012; Yahalom-Mack and Eliyahu-Behar 2015; Erb-Satullo and Walton 2017; Lehner and Schachner 2017; Erb-Satullo 2019). Recent studies now enable investigations of iron technologies during this pivotal period by addressing the organisation of production, the patterns of consumption and the relationship between craftspeople and political authorities (e.g., Lehner 2017).…”

“…They should therefore be seen as part of broader research efforts that sought to re-evaluate the organisational aspects of iron production in the eastern Mediterranean. In effect, iron became more attractive than bronze because of the particular conditions of the associated social, political and cultural contexts (Bunimovitz and Lederman 2012, 104–5; Erb-Satullo 2019, 582–3). Yet despite their sensitivity to these contexts, the models pertaining to the Aegean still rely on quantitative collation focused on general counts and types of iron artefacts at different sites as opposed to interdisciplinary studies.…”

“…Lastly, investigations often neglect to interrogate the complexity of the process of innovation, which begins with a discovery and ends with a final implementation or a rejection of technology or individual technological steps (Renfrew 1978; Hjärthner-Holdar and Risberg 2009; Bunimovitz and Lederman 2012). Of particular importance is the specific point that even if a certain innovation is accepted at approximately the same time in a number of regions, the technological change might have happened for different reasons in different places and, crucially, under varying local conditions.…”

“…While a very few recent synthetic studies applying cutting edge analytical methods in the Aegean have been published so far, new multipronged investigations in the eastern Mediterranean have incorporated theoretically driven approaches to ancient technology earlier on, including an emphasis on how technological innovation occurred and on investigating the impact of social context on technology (Yahalom-Mack and Eliyahu-Behar 2015; Lehner 2017; Erb-Satullo 2019). In this respect, future studies in the Aegean have the potential to yield equally important observations, as new discoveries related to both production debris and objects of daily use have partially begun to overcome some of these challenges (in the Aegean: Yalçın 1999; Verčík 2017a; Vetta 2020; in Anatolia and the Levant: McConchie 2004; Bunimovitz and Lederman 2012; Veldhuijzen 2012; Yahalom-Mack and Eliyahu-Behar 2015; Erb-Satullo 2019).…”